Chapter Three
Soroya

Once we get to Siberia, we land at the bottom of the mountain where the HYDRA base is, to the east, right where Foreman instructed us to. Bucky is currently dragging the chained officer along with us as we walk across the icy ground, we want to make sure we get the exact spot of Julian's body, and he's going to lead us right to it.

Foreman seems incredibly shocked to see Analiese. From his expression you'd think he'd seen a ghost. "We all thought you had died." He tells her.

Analiese stares at him in burning hatred, shaking her head. "Nope, and I'm glad I didn't, it means I can be here to see you be shipped off to a prison cell never to be seen again."

"I didn't kill your brother." He says in his own defense.

"No, but you buried him in an unmarked grave underneath the feet of the people who did."

He shakes his head, groaning as Bucky tightens his grip on Foreman's chains. "I was only doing my job."

"Myself and countless others have been at the mercy of HYDRA agents just doing their jobs."

For someone who used to be a HYDRA scientist, she really has grown to hate HYDRA. After she helped us take down Bauer and Zemo, and as I've visited her these last two years, I've come to see that she doesn't just hate HYDRA because of what happened to Julian. She hates HYDRA's quest to control people, she hates that thousands of innocent people have been made into weapons by HYDRA, like she was. One could say that it's hypocritical since Analiese used to be one of the people turning those innocents into weapons, but I know that a perspective change can alter a lot in someone's life.

Once we make it to the east side of the mountain, Bucky drops Foreman onto the floor, giving him what I like to call his 'Winter Soldier stare'. It's enough to bring even the fiercest warriors to their knees.

"Where did you bury his body?" Bucky asks, his voice dark, cold as the snow crunching beneath our feet.

Foreman gulps loudly and brings a shaking hand up, pointing in the direction he remembers burying the body. Now that we know the general direction of Julian's body, it's time to get tracking. I lock eyes with my brother and he gives me a nod, as well as an annoyed sigh. Since we need something with Julian's scent to track his body, and since we don't have anything that belonged to him, we need to use the next best thing: his sister. It means we have to smell her, and Alex isn't very pleased with this.

We both approach Analiese, earning a confused glare from her. I feel rather awkward as I explain: "We need to get Julian's scent...and you're the closest thing we got."

Though she doesn't look too pleased with this either, she nods, extending her arms out and gesturing for us to step closer. Alex and I both begin sniffing her, taking in her scent. She definitely smells like how I remember Julian smelling, though her scent is masked heavily in cheap prison soup. Despite the cheap soup however, I'm able to get his scent, and Alex confirms he has too when he says:

"Alright, lets get to work."

I nod to him, turning towards the never ending sea of snow and ice. "Lets go get him."

-

John

Since finding a body that's been buried in ice for more than twenty years is something only shapeshifters can do, the rest of us are left sitting here waiting. Bucky is watching Foreman, Remington is talking quietly with Jade, and Sam is staring at the two as they talk. He looks on edge seeing Jade with Remington, so on edge I have to say:

"Jade is fine. Remington doesn't have her powers anymore, and even if she did, Jade can take care of herself."

Sam closes his eyes and sighs, forcing his attention away from her and onto me. "I know she can. She's the strongest person I know, and not just because of her powers. I don't know what it is, I just..." He trails off, unable to find the right words.

But I can. "You're worried about her because you're in love with her."

Shock, disbelief, and several other emotions go through his face before he begins to deny this claim. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Yes you do. You've loved her since the day you met her. The only question is why you haven't told her."

Sam glances back at Jade, sporting an expression I know all too well: longing. "I guess I'm just worried I'll scare her off. She's been through so much, the last thing I want to do is make her feel stress or pressure."

My eyes fall from Sam to Soroya, whose sniffing the ground several yards away with Alex. Feeling my chest begin to ache, I tell Sam: "Those are just excuses. You're afraid she won't feel the same way you do, but you have nothing to fear. She loves you too, I can tell."

Sam's worried expression fades as a hopeful smile spreads across his lips. "Really?"

I nod, a smile spreading on my lips as well, though mine is more melancholic. "You shouldn't let fear keep you from being happy. Not everyone gets the chance to be with the person they love, so don't hold back."

I look away from Soroya and back to Sam, finding his eyes analyzing my expression, his voice low as he observes: "It sounds like you're speaking from experience."

"All the more reason to listen to me."

Sam doesn't push any further, he just nods his head and grows silent. I'm grateful he does, the last thing I want to talk about are my own love problems.

I can't even remember when my feelings for Soroya began, it came on so gradually that I found myself in the middle before I even knew I had begun. The worst part of all this is that Soroya knows how I feel. I know she can probably sense stuff like that, but since we haven't talked about it, she's pretending she doesn't know anything, which makes me pretend I don't feel anything, which has made our entire friendship awkward.

It's amusing for me to think about how our relationship first started. I hated her and she hated me. But Soroya has a knack of seeing through people and understanding them. I've built so many walls over my heart that no one could break them down, except Soroya. She saw right through my lies and figured out that I just wanted to fill a whole left by my childhood. I long for love and acceptance, so when I met the human embodiment of both those things, it makes sense that I grew these feelings.

It's my luck that when I finally find what I've been looking for, when I finally find love, it's for a woman I can't have. I never had a chance with Soroya. The love that she and Bucky have for each other is unlike anything I've ever seen, and nothing can come between them, not that I would ever try to do so. I respect them both too much to ever try to destroy what they have, and I know that I could never make her as happy as Bucky does, which might be the most painful part of all of this.

All I can do is hope that my feelings for her will go away in time, and hope that our friendship isn't beyond repair.

-

Analiese

Having to sit here and watch from a distance as the Roberts siblings try to find my brother is agonizing. I feel so useless, it almost makes me wish I had my powers back so I could be of some use. Almost.

Rosales has been keeping me company as we've been waiting, and it's surprisingly alright. Usually when I meet someone shy and sweet like Rosales I want to gouge my eyes out, but I find her fascinating. Her powers are so chaotic and dangerous, one would think her personality might reflect that. I would expect someone with those powers to be like Alex or Walker: hardened, childish, a complete pain in the ass, but she isn't. I guess one would also expect someone like Soroya to be hardened and cold as well, but anyone who spends two seconds with her knows that isn't the case. She's like Snow White on cocaine.

"What did you mean when you said Soroya and Bucky are the reason for your brother's death?" Rosales asks softly. "It's just that from everything Soroya has said about Julian...she really cared about him."

I shake my head as I rub my arms, goosebumps going down my body from the cold. Rosales sees this and takes her jacket off, wrapping it around me, saying before I can object: "The serum HYDRA gave me heats my body, which is why I can cause explosions. I literally heat the molecules around me, so I hardly ever get cold, you can have it."

I nod to her in thanks, huddling under the jacket as I explain: "My brother was supposed to use her to find a cure for my powers, but instead he grew to care for her and tried to help her escape. Barnes caught them and murdered him."

"Bucky was brainwashed, it wasn't him."

I roll my eyes, glancing over at him, finding his eyes glued to his wife several yards away. "I don't care."

"I'm failing to see how your brother's death is Soroya's fault." Rosales comments, and when I lock eyes with her, I find them filled with apprehension.

"She got into his head and twisted his mind. He was loyal to me, he loved me until he decided her safety was more important than mine."

"It sounds like you're projecting your anger at your brother onto Soroya."

Oh god not another one. "I really don't need another enhanced preaching princess in my life," I tell her. "I already get psychological analysis from Soroya, I don't need it from you too."

"It's true though," Rosales continues despite clearly hesitant to do so. "I know what that's like. I blamed myself for my parents deaths for a really long time, I directed all my anger and pain towards myself and not the people who really hurt me, HYDRA. Bucky has done it too, so has John, Soroya, Sam, we've all avoided pain before. But if you ever want to move on then you have to confront it."

"I don't want to move on," I tell her honestly. "For so long all I've had is my anger and my pain. I don't know who I would be without it."

"I didn't know who I would be without it either, but I had my friends to support me and love me. They helped me through that process. Still are."

I let out a dark chuckle, looking around at the rag tag group around me. "If you haven't noticed, everyone hates me."

"I don't hate you."

"That's because you just met me."

"Soroya doesn't hate you either. After Foreman told us about Julian, one of the first things Soroya said was that we needed to get you. Everyone else told her it was a bad idea, but she didn't care. She wanted you to be able to find that peace and closure. You don't do things like that for someone you hate."

I know deep down she's right, but I don't acknowledge it. Ever since we met, Soroya has done everything she can to help me. She convinced the Wakandan princess to make a cure for me, she gave me my comfortable cell, she never misses a prison visit and now she's taking me along for finding Julian's body. I always tell myself she does this because she loves being morally superior, that she does good things like this to make others feel inferior and guilty for not being as pure and saint like as her...but I know that isn't true. I hate that that isn't true, it would be easier to hate her if it were.

I know she has this idea that everyone has good in them and everyone has a chance at redemption, and she has said before that this applies to me. But I'm not as naive as she is. Some people aren't good, some people don't feel regret for the awful things they've done, for the path they've walked down. I don't. I don't regret a single thing I've done in my life, apart from being apart of HYDRA. Soroya thinks that because my brother 'redeemed himself' it means that eventually I will too. She says she believes in me and my chance at redemption, but it's not because she sees good in me, its because she's blinded by her love of Julian. I hate that she projects her love of him onto me, I'll never be him. I know that in her eyes I'll always be compared to him, and I think that makes me angrier than anything else. Every time she gives me the speech about how Julian chose the right path, I'm reminded that my own twin chose her over me.

I would have burned the whole world down if it meant saving his life, but he would have let me burn if it meant saving everyone else.

I'm pulled from my thoughts as Soroya lifts her self off the ground and talks quietly to her brother. I think they might have smelt something, and this suspicion is confirmed when they begin to dig through the snow.

Searching in over twenty years worth of snow will take forever, so I walk over towards where they sit digging and kneel down to do the same.

After twenty minutes or so of digging, Rosales walks over to us and makes a welcome suggestion; "I could make small explosions to make the digging go faster. I'll stop once we get a couple more feet. After twenty years he'll be very deep."

I'm already exhausted from digging, so I agree to this idea. Soroya and Alex do too, so we step back and allow Rosales to get so work. She closes her eyes and furrows her brows in concentration, small harmless explosions sounding off around her, cutting through the layers of snow and ice. We allow her to do this for a few minutes before we continue diving ourselves, not wanting to risk blowing off one of my brother's limbs.

All of the sudden I hit something hard. We're not several feet deep into a hole, deep enough that what I just hit could be Julian. Feeling my hands begin to shake, I force myself to keep digging, I force myself to continue on. Soroya and Alex still dig by my side, but I can see them growing tense, especially Soroya, whose hands are shaking as violently as mine are.

We don't stop until the entire body is dug up. I don't think, I don't speak, I don't even breathe until Soroya, Alex, and I haul the body out of the hole and lay him out on the snow above. Once we've done this though, I force myself to look at what we've discovered, what we dug up.

The ice has preserved him well. He looks exactly as he did the day he died. He has the same square jaw, the same arched brows, the same small round ears. His hair is still neatly cut, his face still cleanly shaved. His brown skin is cold to the touch, but inhumanly so. He's frozen solid, there's not an ounce of warmth in him. He's like a statue. His eyes are staring blankly up at the sky, they almost look glass. My eyes then fall into his neck, which is the thing that has changed most. It's crunched in, his bones shattered beneath his frozen skin, his head angled in an unnatural position.

I look over my shoulder to Barnes, who is staring at the body in horror, a tear slipping down his cheek. I keep expecting him to come over and comfort his wife, but he just stands there and stares at Julian's body, his handiwork.

My anger for Barnes is only outweighed by my sorrow. Sorrow doesn't even feel like the right word. What word in any language can describe the pain of seeing your dead brother for the first time in twenty two years. The last time I saw him was when he was going to the base for work, he hugged me and promised me that he would return soon with some new supplies for testing for the cure. But he never returned, he never came back.

And now here we are, finally reunited. I feel tears quickly begin to fall down my face, my lip wobbling as I cling to my twin's body. I'm not the only one, Soroya is sobbing on the other side of his body, resting her forehead against his and letting the tears fall onto his frozen cheeks. Alex is sitting next to her, silently rubbing her back, looking extremely upset, but I know that is more because of his sister than Julian.

"I want to bury him next to my parents." I tell Soroya, my voice barely above a whisper.

She lifts her head up and nods, another sob escaping her lips. "Of course." She barely manages to get out.

We don't speak for a long time after that. We just sit here, holding onto Julian's body, letting the agony and pain from the past two decades spill over the edge and drown us. Usually I get angry when Soroya expresses what Julian meant to her, I hate when she says he was a brother to her, because he was my brother, not hers. But now I'm glad she does, because she knows how I'm feeling right now, she understands my pain.

She feels just as broken as I do.